Monster
by Candelabra
Summary: Gaara's birth didn't just ruin his life. A story from young Temari's point of view on the effect her youngest brother's birth had on the rest of her family.


**A/N:** What is this? It's a story! OMAGAWSHGASP! And a Naruto story, to boot! Never thought I'd get round to uploading it. Anyway, this is just a little ... thing about Gaara's birth from Temari's point of view. Yes, I know she was only three. Let's pretend she has an abnormally good memory. Oh, and in case you're wondering, this isn't necessarily her looking back from ... right now. It's her looking back from when she's older.

And this was originally going to be a oneshot, but I think I might continue it ... show how Kankurou and Temari didn't exactly lead lovely lives either ... yeah. So, anyway, read, enjoy, and don't forget to review!

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and it's characters MIGHT belong to me, someday, if I manage to travel to an alternate reality. That hasn't happened yet. :(

* * *

I don't think Kankurou remembers much of the days before — he was too young. Truth to tell, I don't either. But what little I can recall is of a woman with soft golden hair and a soft golden smile, with warm arms and kindness. I called her 'Mama'. Everything from those days was happy and beautiful. 

Then the man came, a heavily warded barrel under his arm, requesting a private audience with my father, who I think I always knew was someone important. Even as young as I was, I could feel the evil hidden under the papers on the barrel, and when father sent us out of the room I clutched at Uncle Yashamaru's arm. I didn't hide my face. Father said I must be strong and not flinch away from horror and pain and fear as other girls did. I was determined to obey him, and show I was not weak.

I remember sitting with Yashamaru in secret outside the doorway, listening in silence to my father and the strange man. I think, now, that we were not supposed to have been there, but at the time I knew only that Yashamaru was letting me listen with him and needed me to be quiet.

I did not understand exactly what they said. They spoke of some faraway place called Konohagakure, and a Fourth and a Kyuubi, a Nine-tails. I heard about a seal and a decree of secrecy, but I did not know what that meant, or why they spoke of a child as well when they said those words. Father was angry, though, father was jealous, and the man had a Shukaku, a One-tail, ready for use.

As I listened to these words that I couldn't understand, I payed attention to Yashamaru to glean some meaning from them. I saw his face close and his grip on my arms tighten until I would have pulled away if I could.

I heard Mama's name, Karura, and wondered what she had to do with this other world of terms where Fourths sealed Nine-tails into children. What business did it have with her and the baby she said she would have in five months?

But I did know that when they spoke of Mama, Yashamaru's whole body went stiff and he clutched onto me tightly, as though he were a child hugging his pillow for comfort when there was no other comfort to be had.

We left and he did not speak of the conversation to me again, except to say I must tell no one what we had heard, not even Kankurou. I agreed readily enough — the conversation was for adults, and it had frightened me.

-----

It was only a few weeks later that they came for Mama. What I remember best about them are their faces.

The ANBU's were ceramic masks, pale, inhuman robots that grabbed my mother and held her as she kicked and screamed. Chiyo-baa-sama's was carved and ancient wood as my mother cried and begged and pleaded. And my father's, Kazekage-sama, was stone, hard and cruel and unfeeling.

Kankurou and I watched wide-eyed from the doorway as Yashamaru fought with them outside, fought and failed to take his sister, our mother, away from them.

I remember Mama screaming, sobbing to father. "No, no," she said again and again. "Please, no."

And then, those beautiful kind eyes that were always smiling, always there, drowned in tears and full of utter despair: "Why? I thought you loved me ... why? Why? How can you do this?"

But father did not reply. Stone does not speak.

-----

They brought her back after three days, exhausted and broken, face and skin stained with sand and tears and blood. Father and the ANBU laid her down on the floor of our house, and I crept up to her when they had left.

Her face looked strange, almost grey, and covered with streaks of sand. I touched it, and her eyes opened.

"Te ... mari," she croaked, and tried to smile through cracked and bloodied lips.

"Mama ... what's wrong?"I asked her, and her eyes filled with tears.

Yashamaru was suddenly behind me, and he told me to go back to the room that Kankurou and I shared, go to sleep. I sneaked a glance at them as I left. Mama was crying, her face buried in Yashamaru's shoulder. To my surprise and horror, there were tears on Uncle's face as well, and the sight so disturbed me that I left without a word.

-----

Days passed. Mama was different, changed. She wasn't _my_ Mama anymore — there was no more golden warmth. Kankurou and I watched wide-eyed as she went about the house in silence, her face grey, her eyes dead. Father never really came home anyway, but suddenly his absence was felt and realized far more than ever before.

"Your father is a very evil man," Yashamaru said one day when Mama was at one of the Council meetings with father, as she often was, and he had been left to look after Kankurou and I. I looked up at him in surprise as Kankurou carried on playing with the puppet parts that Chiyo-baa-sama had given him.

Gone was the laughing and happy Uncle I had known — his face was all hard lines and greyness now, his eyes and hair dulled. He looked, I realized, like Mama did — as though he were nothing more than an empty husk, the shell of some long-dead thing.

Still, I knew he couldn't speak of my father that way. I had yet to completely understand what Kazekage-sama meant, and how important he was, but no one could be allowed to call my father evil.

I punched him hard in the elbow. He gasped in shock and pain, and I remember that moment as being the first time I had ever truly caused harm to someone with the intention of doing so. I remember the rush of satisfaction at the expression of pain in his face — it was a just punishment, I thought, for insulting my Kazekage.

A flicker of a smile crossed his face, and he was almost like the old Yashamaru again, then.

"You're strong," he told me. I lifted my head arrogantly, pleased.

"Don't talk 'bout Father like that."

"But it's true," he said quietly. I stared at him doubtfully.

"Is it?"

He nodded.

"Why?" I challenged, and he tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, eyes glazing over again.

"Because of what he's done to your mother."

"Done what?"

"He's killed her."

"Wha's killed?" asked Kankurou from the floor, having decided to pay attention to the conversation.

"'s when you make someone not there," I told him, superior in being three years old to his two.

"Mama's no killed." said Kankurou, brow furrowed in confusion.

"She will be soon," said Yashamaru grimly.

"When?" I asked curiously. For me, the topic held no dread. I was too young to fully comprehend what death meant, and to me, Mama had already gone away. The strange grey woman that walked through our house couldn't be the same Mama that had laughed and held me before. She was old and weary, and often snapped at us. My Mama was young and vibrant, eternally kind, always there when Father wanted to be left alone.

Perhaps when this grey woman had been 'killed' and left, Mama would come back. For in my mind, this was a bad demon that had taken over my mother's body with the help of Chiyo-baa-sama (whom I had never liked) and maybe Father, if Yashamaru said he was evil.

"When the baby's born," said Uncle quietly, and then he spoke no more on the subject.

----

Sometimes, when she walked around the house, or sat, or ate, or did anything at all, the grey thing that wore Mama's body would suddenly collapse in pain. Sometimes she screamed and gasped, clutching desperately at her stomach, and sometimes she merely wept brokenly into Yashamaru's arms; he was always there to catch her.

Kankurou and I were always there, watching wide-eyed. I would look at Yashamaru and my mother, and then at Kankurou, and think that was the way brothers and sisters should be. They should always look after each other, be there to catch the other when they fell. I vowed that I would always be there for Kankurou.

I did not even think of the new baby, for I had almost forgotten that it was related to me. Yashamaru always spoke of it as though speaking of a monster, and grey Mama seemed to agree.

Sometimes she would glare at her swollen stomach in the mirror, as though her eyes were daggers. Those were the times that she seemed least like my mother. "I hate you," she would say, "I hate you," and I never knew if she was talking to Father or the baby.

"Why's Mama hurt?" I asked Yashamaru once.

"It's the baby," he told me, spitting the last word like a curse.

"Baby hurts her?" I said, wide-eyed.

"Yes."

"All babies hurt?"

"Not like this one."

"Why?"

He shook his head helplessly. "I don't know," he said at last, but I think now that he _did_ know, he just didn't have the words to make me understand that there was a war being fought in my mother's stomach, a war between child and monster. He didn't know how to tell me that the child was losing; it had lost the day Chiyo-baa-sama put the sand monster in Mama's stomach.

I wasn't finished, though. "If baby goes away, Mama stops hurting?"

There was a faint ghost of a smile. "Yes,"

"You want baby gone." I guessed.

"I want baby dead," he whispered. His face was pale and set.

"So do I," I decided. "If baby hurts Mama."

----

They say that when my youngest brother was born, our mother's screams were heard all across Sunagakure. I do not know if this is true or not, for Yashamaru had been ordered to take Kankurou and I away from the village to visit in the Country of Water for some time before the child's birth, and we did not arrive home until much later.

I think, though, that the story is not completely true. After all, it was more than just my mother who was killed that day. Of the seven jounin, two doctors and three nurses that were present at the birth, only one survived. My youngest brother's entry into the world was heralded with a torrent of blood and screams.

And now you must forgive me, for it is here that my memory begins to wander.

I am quite sure that we came back from the Country of Water not too long after the birth. I remember clearly walking through the village gates and seeing that all the people were staring at us. I did not know or understand why, but I think that at that moment, maybe Yashamaru had begun to. His grip on my hand tightened, and while at first I had been somewhat proud, glad that they recognized their Kazekage's kin, now I began to be afraid.

But after that I am not sure what happened. I don't know who told us that my mother was dead, or where, or even when. I know only that there was a strange feeling in my stomach when we were told, though I don't remember the actual event. It was as though something had just been emptied out from me, as though a scavenger bird had come and plucked away all my insides. Young as I was, unable to comprehend death as I was, I never forgot that feeling for the rest of my life.

Some nights after our return I was sitting at the kitchen door listening. Perhaps the reason I remember this so clearly is because it was so very different from what I usually did — someone, I don't remember who, had once told me that listening at doorways was very unbecoming of a young girl. I know now that whoever they were, they were definitely not talking about a kunoichi, because that is quite often a requirement for a shinobi to do. But I was young and did not know that kunoichi were any different from regular girls, so I followed the rule most of the time.

But not this night. This night was special — a visitor had come. And Yashamaru had been acting so strange ... it is odd, that I cannot remember exactly how he had been acting, only the thought that he was different even from how he'd been in the last few months before the baby's birth and my mother's death.

The visitor was not very old, and his head was wrapped in white bandages. With him came Chiyo-baa-sama, who I had not seen since the day they took Mama away and turned her into the grey woman.

"My gods," Yashamaru had said when he opened the door, as I listened from my bed in the shared room with Kankurou. "Was it ...?"

There was a silence, and I think the man must have nodded. It was about then that I decided I had to see — Yashamaru would not tell me anything.

So I sat at the kitchen door, hidden, and listened as they spoke and drank tea.

"You were there." said Yashamaru. It wasn't a question.

The man drank some tea and took a breath. "It was the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed." he said.

I looked at him with some fascination. He had a red mark under his eye on the side of his undamaged face. I learned much later that his name was Baki, and that he was the only person other than my father that witnessed my brother's birth and survived.

"Blood, everywhere," he continued. "He literally ripped her apart the moment he was out. And everyone ... oh, gods. I've seen stuff, as shinobi, but ... that. Nothing compares to it. It was a nightmare."

Yashamaru's face had gone even stiffer.

"So ... it was quick." Again, a question that was not a question.

"Yes. Very quick," said Baki, but he said nothing more to reassure Uncle Yashamaru.

"And the baby? Where is it now?" asked Chiyo.

"I don't know. Kazekage-sama took it."

My uncle cleared his throat. The words he said next seemed forced. "... and ... what did it look like?"

There was a silence so heavy with tension that even I could feel it.

"I ..." began Baki at last. "There was so much sand. I think it was trying to break free ..."

"But the baby?" said Yashamaru, and his voice was suddenly urgent.

"I don't know," said Baki flatly. "There was too much sand, too much screaming ... and it had just ripped my eye out. I couldn't ..."

"Then it is a monster," said Yashamaru. Now his voice was eerie, too calm. Too complacent.

"Just like you thought. And Karura." said Chiyo-baa-sama.

I jerked at my mother's name — I had almost forgotten that she was part of this whole business ... again, that curious ache started in my stomach. Mama was gone. The grey woman had gone away, but I still couldn't see my Mama.

Uncle Yashamaru was nodding. Baki blinked at him with his one remaining eye, and took another sip from his tea.

There was a silence around the table, and I tried very hard to not move, not make a sound. They were all shinobi, so I marvel at the fact, now, that they didn't notice I was there. But perhaps everything that had happened was too much, and they just couldn't concentrate probably.

When I grew older I would learn to disdain those who were unable to keep their head and maintain control in a situation like that, but then I was only happy that none of them saw me.

"What is its name?" said Baki at last. "Do you know?"

Chiyo coughed out a ragged laugh. "Hah! Name? Why name a monster? By all accounts the experiment is a fail — we should just get rid of it."

"Kazekage-sama doesn't think so," said Baki diplomatically.

"Hhm." Chiyo took a sip from her cup. Her eyes were bitter and looked very old, suddenly, as she lowered it and gazed contemplatively into its contents.

"It has a name," said Yashamaru unexpectedly. We all looked at him, me unseen.

He was staring at the table-top, knuckles shaking.

"What?" Baki was quite surprised. "You want to name it?"

"Not me." said Yashamaru, and a look crossed his face that was bitter and full of loathing. I had never seen such a look on his face before, even when he spoke of the baby before its birth. It frightened me, but I said and did nothing because I wanted to watch.

"Karura," continued Yashamaru. "She told me ... she had a name for it, if it was born the monster she thought it would be. So that it could carry her grudge for the village on, long after her death."

He pulled a brush and a bottle of ink out from his pocket and opened the ink. Chiyo moved her hand back and Baki watched in some amazement as he dipped the brush in the ink and began to write something directly onto the table.

"Hey, now!" said Chiyo, sounding more like the annoying, mock-angry elder that I knew and disliked. "Don't do that, you'll ruin the table!"

Everyone ignored her.

Baki leaned forward as Yashamaru finished. He swore. "But that's ..."

"Fitting?" said Yashamaru, and his voice was darkly amused. Behind the door, I shivered. Had the grey woman come to haunt Yashamaru? He was so different it was almost like how Mama was, right before ...

"What? What?" said Chiyo-baa-sama, sounding more like a spoiled child than a respected elder. She stepped around the two to read whatever was scrawled on the table.

"What a horrible name to give a child," she said at last. "But you are right, Yashamaru — it is indeed fitting."

Baki looked first at her, then Yashamaru, and then finally back down at the table. His lips moved and he spoke the name that would later haunt the thoughts of everyone in Sunagakure.

"Gaara. Sabaku no Gaara."

As I heard the words I drew in an almost silent gasp of breath, which again was thankfully unheard by those in the room.

At last, the silent menace that had been stalking my family had been given a name. At last, I knew what to call it.

_Gaara. Sabaku no Gaara._


End file.
